Teri McLaren
tops repaired with several different colors of cast-off rope.
"Well…"
"Deal! Now let's not waste any more time," Og pronounced, looking warily over his shoulder. The angry smith had skirted the obstacles and now bore down on them, intent on addressing Og's insult. "We have to be ready to go by tonight. Or do you want all of the people looking for you to find you first?"
Cheyne didn't get to answer. As the smith closed in, ham-sized fists waving, they rounded a corner, dove through another breach in the Mercanto wall, this one connecting to a fruit and vegetable stand to the Barca, and came out in a part of Sumifa Cheyne had never seen. In fact, it looked like a part of Sumifa that daylight had never seen.
Thousands of mangy yellow rats chittered and swarmed along the gutters, fighting for refuse dumped from the market Cheyne had just run through. Cheyne winced as Og hardly looked where he put his feet, seeming to dodge the rodents with practiced ease. Cheyne noted that the smell would have been overpowering had it not been for the blue cloud of shirrir hanging in the air. For another quarter of a mile, while Cheyne picked bits of onion skins and melon rind from his hair, Og navigated a trail through a maze of ancient garbage dumps, dice games, and shirrir parlors to bring them up to what had to be the worst-looking shop on the worst-looking side of the worst-looking back street in all of the city. Gaudy pastel paint peeled away from the walls of the stucco buildings and the high, irregular, windows had lost their glazing centuries ago. Piles of crates and other junk loomed over the alley doorway, as if garbage from all over the Barca had been deposited there for months.
In the midst of all this, Cheyne noticed a Fascini sedan, its purple fringe rippling as the Neffian slaves broke into a quick march. They pulled away from the front of the shop just as Og knocked softly in an intricate pattern on the heavy wooden back door.
SONG OP TIME] o l
Which opened somewhere in the middle of Og's percussion, a serving girl's small, irritated face appearing from behind it, much to his amazement and then to his distress.
"Where is Kalkuk?" said Og.
The young woman at the door winced, then motioned them quickly in with a bottle of linseed oil. "Dead. They just put him in the ground. You gonna be dead, too, if she finds you here."
"What's happened, Vashki? How Is Kalkuk dead? I just saw him the other day, and he was perfectly healthy, may he spend as little time as possible in the fourth purgatory," muttered Og, his voice as low as the girl's.
"He was found by the hired men working for that foreign digger out at Old Sumifa. They are trying to hush it up, but my man works out there, too, and said the boss sent them home early yesterday. Kirmah recognized Kalkuk. We all knew Kalkuk was behind with his payments to Riolla, but it was only by a few days and we thought he could come up with something. Diggers brought him in, and his kinswoman buried him this morning, early. Look, I gotta work and you gotta go. The lady's just back from an appointment and she is not happy. She's Kalkuk's niece; we worked together in here sometimes, but she's the boss now-"
"Vashki? Who are you talking to?"
Cheyne turned toward the sound of the voice. A fragrance filled the room instantly: bergamot and myrrh. The owner of the red ribbon, the woman with the prince.
"Uh-oh," said Vashki, resuming her work with practiced immediacy. "Now you get to be thrown out in style. Just like the fancy Fascini boyfriend in here before you. Young Prince Maceo himself!"
A slender woman glided into the room, the large package in her arms obscuring her face. All Cheyne could see behind the box was a tumble of black curls pinned up loosely with combs and red ribbons. She